Wichita Eagle: Annie Calovich

More mysteries in the gardening world: weather and vocabulary

Annie Calovich — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 07:03 CST

When it comes to nature, put me in the camp of the more we know about, it the less we know.

Sometimes you just need to acknowledge the mystery and call it good. Usually, very good.

Somebody asked me last week, after the new plant-hardiness map was released, whether we could now plant earlier in the spring than before.

New map, garden grants announced

Annie Calovich — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:02 CST

I can’t remember a newsier January in the garden world, with headlines being made on the global, national and state level. Here are a few of them:

• The international requirement that Latin be used in the naming of new plants is dropped.

• The U.S. plant-hardiness-zone map is updated, making most locales half a zone warmer.

If we’re not eating tomatoes, we’re planning for them

Annie Calovich — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 07:49 CST

I don’t know if it’s because of a bad tomato crop in 2011 or despite it, but there’s been plenty of conversation about tomatoes to go around for a January.

A friend of mine who is allergic to tomatoes said her husband wonders why she still grows them. One could wonder why, in January, we speak of them. It doesn’t matter. They’re the common denominator among gardeners. If we can’t eat them — either because we’re allergic (and I think I’m borderline, but I don’t want to find out for sure) or because it’s not the weather for growing them — be assured we will be planning for a way to eat them.

Johnson’s Garden Center on 13th Street has tapped into this desire by growing tomatoes in black plastic bags in its greenhouse this winter. Customers can pick from the vine — a pretty neat prospect in January — or buy already picked tomatoes that sit in a basket by the cash register.

Annie Calovich: Houseplants good for the soul and body

By By Annie Calovich — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:46 CST

I have a peace lily that I keep around because it was a gift to me after my mother died. It doesn’t flourish, and any other plant that looked this scraggly would have been tossed long ago, but I keep it for sentimental reasons.

One houseplant that I do own that does well is a philodendron my sister gave me after it was banned, along with other plants, from her place of business. It seems someone complained of flying insects, and the office plants got the blame. And the boot.

I didn’t hesitate to take the philodendron up to The Eagle newsroom, figuring it could greenify my desk the way Bonnie Bing’s healthy “Phyllis” had done for hers. Bonnie had been pouring leftover coffee into Phyllis’ soil for years, and it sat far from our windows overlooking Old Town, and yet it was healthy as could be. When the Oklahoma earthquake rattled Wichita one Monday evening in early November, it was Phyllis shimmying three stories up that grabbed my attention.

How-to books take you only so far in January

By A Bit of Earth — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 07:23 CST

The first week of the new year is always so refreshing (especially if it includes days when the temperature is in the 60s) — empty of just-shed holiday pressures, full of promise, decorated with a few new calendars (though I’m missing the annual pilgrimage to Borders for half-off this year).

Reading more is always a resolution of mine, and a couple of new garden books, received as Christmas presents, seemed the best place to start in 2012.

I love the initial digging into garden and cookbooks — some of them combined in one, as in “Growing at the Speed of Life” by the Galloping Gourmet, Graham Kerr. But, at some point, you have to put them down and cook. Or sow seeds. Otherwise you’ll go crazy, as we do watching football instead of getting outside and tossing one with the boys. (Well, you boys should do that, anyway.)

Winter working out all right so far

Annie Calovich — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 08:06 CST

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Your branches green delight us.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

He keeps Botanica’s fires burning

Annie Calovich — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 08:08 CST

Whenever I go to Illuminations at Botanica, I’m grateful for the warmth, light and aromatic fragrance emanating from the chimeneas placed throughout the gardens.

The fires are welcome beacons on cold nights, solitary but cheery sentinels amid the hundreds of thousands of electric lights. I love the light show, but they don’t hold a candle to real fire.

The chimeneas always have seemed to me to have been set alight and stoked by elves, because I had never seen anyone around them. At least, I’d never seen anyone, until I got the main fire tender to agree to meet me in the daylight.

The prettiest poinsettias require persistent care

Annie Calovich — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 08:34 CST

Poinsettias grow like hedges in their native Mexico, Jerry DeRee of Dutch’s Greenhouse said recently at a lunchtime lecture at Botanica.

When they’re grown in Wichita, they are, shall we say, a bit more challenged. But potted up they’re looking gorgeous in garden centers around town, including Dutch’s, which grows its own.

A new variety there this year: Ruby Frost. I like how Rachel Westmoreland of Dutch’s describes it: pink with creamy white frosting on top. The bracts – the colorful part of the plant – are deeply toothed.

Christmas trees are another miracle after summer’s heat

Annie Calovich — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 07:24 CST

I have to admit that, in the midst of the inferno that was summer 2011, when we were trying to keep tomato vines alive and shaking our heads at the unending heat, I did not give a thought to the growers of Christmas trees. The thought of seeing Christmas, or anything approaching cold weather, again seemed as likely as winning the lottery.

But now we’ve moved on, and we’re ready to demand our Christmas trees.

But how did they take the heat?

Thanksgiving table traditions

Annie Calovich — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:23 CST

When we asked readers to tell us about their Thanksgiving traditions, we heard about platters and other special objects that make the holiday special tableside. Here are their stories.

The old blue platter

For as long as I can remember, every Thanksgiving and Christmas, we opened up my mother’s china cabinet, which had been my grandmother’s before her, and pulled out the "old blue platter" to use for our holiday turkey and ham. It was very old, and no one remembered quite where my grandmother acquired it. It was the only piece from this type of setting that she had. It has gold trim, true gold, so, of course, it must be hand washed.

Evergreens not just for Christmas

Annie Calovich — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 06:24 CST

Jodi Gieser is a master gardener who uses real evergreens in decorating, and not just for Christmas. She put together some Thanksgiving swags and a centerpiece for a recent lunchtime lecture at Botanica. As she told me, “Evergreen is with us 12 months out of the year.”

Evergreens are with us year-round because they never drop their leaves. Because of that, they continue to lose moisture through their foliage, even in the winter. And that’s why it’s important to keep evergreens watered throughout the year, including winter.

Jodi recommends cutting fronds of evergreen from full trees or shrubs from your own property or a friend’s with permission, or a sample from nice and full cedars in roadside hedgerows in the country.

Event to showcase wide variety of orchids

Annie Calovich — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 07:43 CST

If you’re missing the joys of getting outside and playing with flowers, this weekend’s orchid show at Botanica could provide a winter antidote.

The nicely timed show by the Kansas Orchid Society will showcase a wide variety of the huge plant family that goes by the name orchid. And it will include a sale of orchids and supplies by three area and out-of-town vendors – Bird’s Botanicals of Kansas City, Tumbucktoo Orchids of Sedgwick and Prairie Orchids of El Dorado. Having blooming orchids around the house this season of standard time – may it pass quickly – could be an intriguing and pretty distraction.

Of course, many orchids don’t bloom all the time. Many need just the right conditions. But, as with outdoor plants, there are orchids that will fit your window exposures and temperatures and humidity level. The nice thing about garden-club shows is you can get the help to choose wisely.

Gardener’s almanac (Nov. 5)

Annie Calovich — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 09:35 CDT

A no-shnow – I have to admit that I felt excited when the weather turned north-wind blustery cold with mist on Wednesday, but I was also relieved that we dodged the first-snow bullet. One level of excitement at a time. Now on to coping with a return to standard time on Sunday. I will be haunting The Eagle’s weather page for sunrise and sunset times every day, trying to get outside more during the window of light.

Canna storage – If you’re wanting to preserve canna bulbs for next year, cut the foliage off several inches above ground, wash the bulbs well, let them dry for a few days, and then store them in a cool spot such as a crawl space or a cool basement, extension agent Bob Neier says. Older varieties with big rhizomes tend to hold more moisture and store better without drying, Bob says. Newer varieties are smaller and tend to dry out more. To help the smaller ones along, tuck them into peat moss, Bob recommends.

Other summer-flowering bulbs can be stored in a similar manner.

Untended porches, yards can be frightful

Annie Calovich — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 06:13 CDT

When my sister and I checked out decked-out Broadview Street one Halloween several years ago, one of her feet slipped into a narrow hole in one of the front yards, probably because a cover to some utility access had become dislodged.

It was scary in two ways – one could imagine that something was pulling on her, well in keeping with the gruesome Halloween Central displays all around, and ... she kind of got hurt.

The accident was a good reminder to me of why I need to keep my front porch cleared and cleaned on Halloween. In past years, my sycamore tree would drop enough leaves to create an ocean swirling around the shore of the porch, and the holiday would be a must-rake event.

Time to change the bulbs

Annie Calovich — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 12:04 CDT

I’ve been having fun freshening my container gardens with perky little johnny-jump-ups, tucking purple ones in alongside rosemary and lavender, making new combinations with ornamental kale. It feels good to get creative and see fresh flowers blooming outside yet this year. Pansies and their smaller johnny-jump-up forms will continue to bloom into the winter if planted in the ground or toward the center of a big pot and will pop back at the earliest spring opportunity.

We can also get our creative juices flowing toward our spring flowers now in the form of bulbs. I read that Sally Ferguson, director of the Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center, said that “sweater weather” is the time to plant bulbs such as tulips, daffodils and crocus, and I think we’ve finally hit that — hopefully not going directly to winter coats. Actually, bulbs can be planted as long as the ground is not frozen, but it’s been my experience that if I don’t get them in the ground in October or November, the bulbs are more likely to become compost than flowers.

Carol and Walt Anderson of Belle Plaine this year ordered one of those drill attachments that is like an auger for planting bulbs from Burpee and they love it. The auger attaches to a battery-pack-powered drill and makes a 6- to 8-inch hole “in a flash,” they say. They throw in some bulb fertilizer, pop the bulb in, push the dirt back in “and move on down the road.” They have clay soil, and if they wanted to, they could amend the soil with some organic matter such as compost as they went, but I’m not sure they did — since they were planting 1,000 bulbs, mostly in the form of daffodils, because they have lots of tulip-loving squirrels around.

Model flower citizens

ANNIE CALOVICH — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 07:19 CDT

When I was at the Kansas 150 Festival last Saturday, covering the sesquicentennial parade, I made a point of checking out the landscaping around what is arguably Wichita's front porch — the Douglas side of Century II, and the environs.

How did Wichita present itself to the rest of the state, the people from out of town who came to represent their region for Kansas' 150th birthday?

I noticed that the plantings around the Garvey buildings across the street from Century II generally improved the surroundings, while the round beds in front of Century II were barren.

Get the dirt on compost

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 00:07 CDT

I planted a couple of evergreen shrubs this week — weather, don't turn cold on me now — and, in the process, I dug up what we called "dirt clods" when I was a child.

I grew up in one of the first houses built in a new housing development, and, as other houses went up, there were plenty of dirt clods in our world. I remember them being a common part of our playtime conversations, but the only specific thing I remember is that ornery neighbor boys would throw them.

As a gardener, I haven't come across the term "dirt clods." "Clods in the soil" is the more elegant term I run across. Either way, they hold a negative connotation.

October is gentle but full of activity

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:08 CDT

This fall has struck me as particularly gentle. Maybe it's because the air conditioner has not turned on for weeks — and neither has the neighbors'. We hear a lot about various types of pollution, but never enough about noise pollution, or light pollution, in my mind. I like silence, or at least the absence of mechanical noise.

Maybe it's because the summer was so harsh that we didn't know how desperately we needed a glorious, mellow interlude.

Whatever the reason, I'm grateful for October, and I love the tasks of planting trees, improving the soil and planning for drifts of spring-flowering bulbs. To me, these tasks are not harried must-dos but enjoyable take-your-time-and-savor pleasures.

New season, new chance to rescue garden

ANNIE CALOVICH — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 07:29 CDT

It's now officially autumn, and if any group of people ever looked forward to it — even if some of them usually love summer best — it has to be those of us who have lived through a record- breaking heat wave.

Even though I'm loving the cooler weather — cherishing it, actually, as never before — I find myself looking hungrily out the window during the day, my eyes taking in the light as if it were desperately needed sustenance.

I stand transfixed at the front door of the house, the lush greenness of the trees and the pink vividness of the roses piercing my retinas.

Helping monarch butterflies along their way

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 07:43 CDT

When Sam McFarland was a little boy, his mother, Kristy, planted a butterfly garden where she showed him the phases of egg, caterpillar, cocoon and end result.

Now that Sam is 16, Kristy is the one who is playing outside. This week, her garden was a seek-and-find game.

"This is our first caterpillar stop," Kristy told me as we arrived at a stand of chewed-off fennel and butterfly weed. Her keen eye found creatures in all sizes and phases of the metamorphosis of a butterfly.